Episode 180: Lectio Divina

The Christian Feminist Podcast

Victoria Reynolds Farmer, Kayla Beth Moore, and Christina Bieber Lake talk about the devotional practice of lectio divina.

Knowing

• What is lectio divina?

• https://www.usccb.org/bible/national-bible-week/upload/lectio-divina.pdf

• What are our experiences with this form of interpretation?

• How has it helped us think differently about Biblical texts or our own religious practices?

Reading

We will perform a lectio divina reading of a Biblical passage and discuss it afterwards. We encourage our listeners to use your Bibles along with us.

Passage: James 4:13-17 (New American but feel free to use your own)

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”—

14 you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.* You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.

15 Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it,* we shall live to do this or that.”

16 But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin.

Reflection:

What did we notice that we wouldn’t have through just reading alone?

What did we learn from each other’s perspectives and observations?

How can we bring lessons from this kind of reading and observing to other parts of our spiritual lives?

Passing On

• Christina: M. Basil Pennington, Lectio Divina: Renewing the Ancient Practice of Teaching the Scriptures

• KB: Son of Laughter by Frederick Buechner

• Victoria: Daily Lectio Divina podcast by Sharon Garlough Brown https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-lectio-divina/id1507769421